LARGE ANIMAL CLINICAL SCIENCES (VLCS) The VLCS is focused on four primary areas: preparing students and house officers for a future in rural medicine, serving our equine and livestock industries and maintaining a safe food supply, pursuing cutting-edge research essential to equine and livestock populations and industries, and providing excellent care through our Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH) and partnership with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). These four focus areas align so each benefits from advances in the others.
Highlights from FY20 include:
Dr. Joanne Hardy
Education The department continues to provide innovative educational programs intended to develop large animal veterinary medical skills in our students, a vital component in addressing the lack of available veterinary medical support in the more rural parts of Texas and fundamental to those students whose future is based exclusively in serving the equine, livestock, or food-producing industries. Our faculty are actively engaged in this exciting new curriculum which extends through students’ senior clinical year and focuses on providing the best veterinary medical graduates. The TDCJ partnership provides unapparelled opportunities for students to learn individual medicine, population medicine, and the inextricable link between animal health and welfare to production. VLCS faculty, working through the Veterinary Emergency Team and VERO, have partnered with the Texas Cattle Feeders Association to develop Secure Beef Supply Plans, providing the opportunity to immerse our students in the cattle feeding industry and produce a safer and more resilient food supply. House officers engaging with VLCS faculty teaching interns and residents in Equine Medicine, Equine Surgery, Food Animal Medicine, and Theriogenology are destined to become the educators and specialists of the future. Awards and recognitions: • Dr. Joanne Hardy - Texas Veterinary Medical Association Teaching Award • Dr. Dan Posey - 2020 Instructional Responsibility Excellence Award from West Texas • Dr. Andra Voges - Honors & Awards Bridges Teaching & Service Awards • Dr. Andra Voges - AFS College-Level Teaching Award • Dr. Jennifer Schleining - Juan Carlos Robles Emanuelli Teaching Award
Dr. Dan Posey
Research VLCS faculty are actively engaged in research efforts focused on health and production issues in the large animal species important to our state and nation, specifically: equine infectious diseases, impacts of the microbiome on health and well-being, food animal infectious diseases and production, equine reproduction, and spatial factors in the development of disease. These efforts, in addition to providing answers to pressing problems, create a robust graduate student education experience and the training ground for tomorrow’s researcher. Awards and research grants: • Dr. Michelle Coleman received the Texas Veterinary Medical Association Research Award and is continuing her work in equine obesity and other diseases affecting horses. • Dr. Noah Cohen has received grants from the Grayson-Jockey Club, Morris Animal Foundation, and Boehringer-Ingellheim and is working in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine on Rhodococcus equi, an important infectious disease in the horse population. The Equine Infectious Disease laboratory has also developed an improved diagnostic test for Streptococcus equi.
Dr. Jennifer Schleining 36 • 2020 CVMBS Annual Report
